Fire sale: another way of burning books

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Hello Margaret,

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The story: while setting up a more stylish-looking link to my Amazon page, I realized to my horror that the price of The Glass Character had been lowered from the list price of $19.95 to $4.73. That's right: $4.73, when it is a paper book that has been out for only five months. Kindle format goes for $7.96, and a used copy may be had for $16.21.

The correspondence above represents my fourth attempt to get through to Amazon for an explanation. At one point I was on the phone, and if I hadn't been so furious it would have been funny: the lady trying to direct me to the right department had the most buoyant Southern accent I've ever heard, and kept calling me "sweetie" and "hon". Over and over again, Amazon tells me they don't know why they are selling my new novel for $4.73 instead of $19.95. They keep repeating that I should contact my publisher for updated information on the list price and to convey that updated information to them: WTF? Updated? The list price is the same now as it has always been. I have absolutely no desire to change it. My publisher has absolutely no desire to change it. It will not be changed for ANY reason! But Amazon's implication is that they've only lowered their price because the LIST PRICE has gone down. Or at very least, because I don't know anything about how prices work and have somehow got it wrong, that the list price is really only two dollars or something. It's simple, silly!





I'm trying to see all this in a favorable light. On the bad side, the book now looks almost worthless, a cheap piece of pulp fiction that they are obviously trying to get rid of at church-rummage-sale prices. It has only been out for five months, and obviously it is already obsolete. On the good side, I just found out I get the same royalties on each copy, no matter what price it sells for. Or at least, that's what Amazon told me.

I am embarrassed, chagrinned, and full of pain and grief over this. I will never publish again. It's not my publisher's fault, as they are the only house in Canada who would take a chance on me. And they are doing what they can against the juggernaut. But I am tired of being casually mauled this way. I am sick of the hustling, the posturing, the rah-rah and other things I feel I should be doing. I am sick of the sense I am never doing enough, or never doing it right, the discomfort, the squirming shame for something I can't even articulate. I am tired of being told I should thank reviewers who have eviscerated me. Kiss the whip! And to do this whether I really mean it or not. And I am REALLY tired of those who take a wrench and a saw and try to "fix" the problem, rather than listening to me and trying to help me figure out what is really going on, and how I can be authentic in the middle of an insane game.





This whole industry has turned so poisonous that I can no longer be part of it. I stand behind The Glass Character because I still think it kicks ass, no matter who tells me what about it. I loved writing it, and so far the writing of it has been practically the only reward (that, and seeing my grandkids watch Harold Lloyd climb the building at the launch). But after this, no more. Four copies for the price of one just hurts me, and it has nothing to do with greed or how much I will "make" or how much I will be "known" or ANYTHING like that. I swear, I have not been able to get across to a single person why this bothers me so much. I'm trying to yell under a bell jar again.

I've been publishing short fiction on my blog for several years now, and it has been gratifying, though a "real book" somehow always seems to carry more - what, cachet? I don't know. It lifts you out of the realm of hobbyist. But If I feel another novel coming on, I will go and lie down for a while, and if it's really bad I'll take a little vacation. Like my very good friend Matt Paust, who keeps me laughing at all this insanity no matter what, I will blog my next novel, chapter by chapter. If someone reads it, great. If no one does, I don't much care because I have no control over that anyway, and I will save myself an enormous amount of stress.





My readership here is extremely uneven, mostly rather sparse, but with one post garnering nearly 100,000 views, and several others over 10,000. (Why? Hell if I know. This thing is anything but hip and high-tech, because I despise those things. The day it turns slick, I will either unplug my computer for good or finally jump out of my psychiatrist's 17th-floor window.) Being a published author was my dream, and after a ridiculous amount of work and grief and tears and perseverence, it actually came true three times. But by the time the third one came out, everyone who could hold a pencil was a published author, whether they could cobble together a coherent sentence or not. As Moxy Fruvous put it, "Everyone's a novelist, and everyone can sing/But no one talks when the TV's on."

What they're asking for is product, the more uniform the better. I just don't see the advantage in contributing something that has already been contributed over, and over, and over again, and shoved in people's faces the same way. But I hear it in my ear all the time: well, that's what you gotta do now, sweetheart. A writer has to hustle.

A former post is recreating itself, growing back like a chopped-off limb. It was such a howl of grief and rage, so nerve-baringly honest, that I knew I had to delete it. But it's back again because, by God, I was not put here on this earth to dissemble. I am an oddball, I do not belong, and so be it. Do not try to convince me otherwise because it will make me insane. This is all about dignity, and identity, and dreams. It's all about those in power casually poking holes in those dreams, and slapping down hope. I've asked a few other writers about this situation and have had four or five different variations on "well, what can you do?" Our powerlessness appalls me.





$4.73, folks. Or you could get a used copy - that's always a better bargain, isn't it? It will only set you back $16.21. The Kindle, if you can afford it, is $7.96. They must want you to buy the paper version - or do they just want to unload it? Fire sale prices, obviously. I don't know what to think.

Dear sir or madam, please buy four or five of these books for the price of one. I don't care what you do with them after that. I just don't want them to be pulped like the other two. Anything but that.

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

It took me years to write, will you take a look. . .

Wrenched

I don't know what I did yesterday, or at least I think I don't know. Last night it was evident something had happened, as I tried to sleep with a knife-blade stuck in my hip bones. Or maybe it was an axe. I don't usually get this sort of thing - oh, maybe once in a while. I hate to admit to arthritis or anything else, as secretly I think of illness (all illness) as "weakness". "Sickness is for mortals," my husband once said - no, he says it all the time, sending me up.

Now I sit in my not-so-great office chair, but at least better than the last one, with an ancient heating pad jammed against the vicinity of my left hip. It's too well-upholstered (the hip, not the chair) to do much good. The chair has a huge gap under the arm where, if it had something solid, the heat would go exactly where it needed to go. I have to hold it there with my left hand, constantly.

How did it happen? I'm not sure. I went to Erica's Christmas extravaganza yesterday, perhaps the sweetest moment of a grandmother's year - little kids in Oliver costumes, an 8-year-old girl playing Silent Night on a 3/4-size violin. This year, unlike other years, a little bit of (actual!) Christmas music snuck back into the proceedings. Last year there was just nothing, no Frosty or Rudolph, just a winter festival with completely unknown songs. Still nice, but unfamiliar, an obvious bow to political correctness.

Maybe there were complaints, who knows, which brought about the changes this year. In any case, there was Erica in the very front row, singing songs from Oliver: Food, Glorious Food, and Consider Yourself. Though these aren't strictly Christmas songs, all the sooty plate-banging Dickensian waifs somehow fit in beautifully. I had never seen my gorgeous granddaughter with her blonde curls all braided up, wearing a grey gingham dress and scuffy old tie-ups like something out of a storybook.

At the end of the concert I felt a rush of icy air, looked around, and saw double doors opening out to a very rare scene in this part of Canada: SNOW! I could practically hear Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney singing White Christmas. Then the girls, let out of school early, ran out into the playground. There was NOT ONE KID there - maybe it wasn't allowed, who knows - so they had the run of the huge place, dotted with giant snowballs and half-snowmen (can you believe kids don't know how to make them here?). When they finally hightailed it out to the play equipment, it was so slippery from frost that they shot out of the end of the slides as if forcefully ejected. Lauren (whose concert is today - double joy!) couldn't get up on the swing. The seat of her snow pants was too slippery.

"Nanny, lift me up," she said, and I did. Was it then that something snapped, or went out of alignment or what? I lifted her, gave her a few pushes (she's six and does not normally need such help, but bundled up like the Michelan Man, I had to get her going). I didn't notice anything until I got home, then -

Jesus! Or whoever! Someone was shoving a hot blade between two bones, and twisting. I knew taking any kind of pain medication would be futile, though I did it anyway, and I was right. I had "done something to my hip", the hip that tended towards arthritis that usually didn't register more than a twinge or a low-grade ache.

So I sit here now. I just went on Facebook, damn it - one of the worst habits I formed this year, after swearing I wouldn't use it. It had something posted like 25 Questions You Should Ask Yourself At The End Of The Year (That Will Probably Make You Feel Really Lousy For Not Accomplishing Any Of Your Personal Goals).  I see I have not taken adequate care of my body, have in fact said screw it most of the time while I try to cope with other things.

Losses. Some gains. Each stressful in their own way. Having to cut loose from a  formerly-close friend whose communications had devolved into boredom and bile. Worse, her integrity had failed, and she was sneaking around planning to leave her husband while insisting it was her grim duty to stay with him until he dies (he has Parkinson's, and she makes him feel bad about spending time with a buddy because my friend does not like the buddy, and wants to separate the two of them for reasons of her own. This means he can't go sailing any more, one of his favorite activities.)

Though we used to say we were sisters in all but blood, I find, to my shock, that I just don't like her any more, that her empty distress calls and perfunctory phone calls to make up for the abyss of her silence ("and how is so-and-so, and how is so-and-so," once asking after my DOCTOR whom she knows nothing about) leave me drained and disappointed. Those so-called conversations were no more intimate than talking with a stranger at an airport. Except for her huge dumps of venom, the whole thing had gone dead for me.

My part, I think, was to let it go on too long. Which I did, still hopeful. Contrary to conventional non-wisdom, hope is NOT the best thing in many situations. I did however land a book contract for Harold Lloyd, amazing to me, but also full of anxiety because now I am hearing that it is almost impossible to get any attention for a book, particularly literary fiction. But Rich Correll called, he really did, after years of futile attempts to get hold of him. Somehow-or-other he got my samples of The Glass Character and seemed to like what he saw, or at least the idea of it. I made the mistake of sending him the whole manuscript, which must have been overwhelming. After the editing process, I realized it wasn't even the same book and that the post-edited version was 100 times better, but by then. . .

So I don't know what to do here. I never do. Phone him again? In the new year? Ever?  I have a tendency to wear out my welcome after two calls. People don't want to deal with me, I guess. I lost Kevin Brownlow that way, after sending him an impulsive, gleeful link to my blog post.

Bad idea. But no one told me.

I can't write about all the rest of my life because this is probably boring enough. Part of my dream came true, but the rest of it looms and creates anxiety, terrible anxiety. I may still lose this dream, it may just drop into the abyss like everything else I've done. I don't know what I expect to happen, or how to handle what MIGHT be tiny little specks of hope that someone will notice it beyond the Canadian literary wilderness.

So I sit here wondering where I got wrenched, how, and why it's so hard for me to bend and straighten and walk. There will be no running around in the snow after the concert today, not for me anyway, no heavy lifting. What I've been given in my life has rained down from the heavens (supposedly, though maybe I did have something to do with raising kids who turned out to be wonderful parents). What I want: I feel like I have these pliers in my hands and am trying to pull out the back tooth of a hippopotamus.

It's not good to be ambitious, unless you are hard enough, unless you have the right stuff, and it looks like I don't. I always hang on too long. But if I let go, would there not be an even more formidable abyss below me? Would I ever stop falling?

These are the festive thoughts I have, at this festive time of year.

Hard, hard, hard

This popped into my head for the first time in years as I had a phone conversation with a dear friend tonight. It seems we are both wrestling with similar things. It has become apparent to us how much easier it is (for some people) to be "benevolent", "socially conscious", sensitive to world issues and the "bleeding crowd", than it is to be vulnerable and caring and human on the level of one heart to one heart.

Easy to be hard.

This is the original cast version from Hair, sung by Lynn Kellog, and I used to listen to it obsessively in 1968 (OK, I hereby date myself as an ageing flower child). I had no idea how great her voice was because back then it all sort of washed over me in a pot-induced haze.

She sings it simply in a great contralto voice, but the emotion is tremendous and the lyric is delivered with devastating impact. Do you only care about the bleeding crowd? How about a needing friend?

I need a friend.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm